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Why Ronald Reagan appears in Fargo Season 2

BEVERLY HILLS, CALIF.—It’s difficult to say just how daunting a task it must have been to take the Academy Award-winning tragicomedy Fargo and turn it into a TV show.

But creator and writer Noah Hawley turned out one of the best dramas on television for 2014, finding that delicate balance of whimsy, violence and tragedy that made the first Coen Brothers movie so distinctive. It also picked up the Outstanding Miniseries Emmy in 2014.

But how do you follow that up?

Season 2 of Fargo, which premieres Oct. 12 on FX Canada, will feature an all new cast and story. Calgary doubles as 1979 Sioux Falls, South Dakota, and Luverne, Minnesota. And former actor Ronald Reagan running for president for the first time figures prominently.

“No one knew it at the time, but Ronald Reagan changed America. Whether you think it’s good or bad, in 1979 there was this huge change still to come and I found that interesting,” Hawley told the Star.

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“On some level our heroes are trying to get back to a simpler America; a more decent America. Which fell into line that he was an actor and that was funny, and we could play around with that. It felt like a great way to mix the farcical with more serious subjects.”

On board for the ride is an all-star cast including Ted Danson, Kirsten Dunst, Patrick Wilson and Kieran Culkin.

Wilson plays the only recurring character, Lou Solverson, whom viewers know from Season 1 as the father of police officer Molly (Allison Tolman) played by Keith Carradine.

In the prequel, Lou is a young state police officer and Molly is just a child. In the first episode he investigates a murder.

Hawley also praised the Canadian crew and said he hoped they could keep shooting in Canada. “The region is perfect and the crew is great,” said Hawley. “Although it would really depend on future issues with the tax credits there, which can be problematic.”

(Alberta and other provinces have been looking at or have modified their tax credits for film and television.)

The new season of Fargo looks promising, maintaining much of the distinctive tone of the original season. Hawley seems to have pulled off a rare coup that escaped the anthology series True Detective in its second season by creating a show that retains much of the flavour and dynamic of the first season with a new cast.

“The Midwest in the ’70s hasn’t really been explored that much,” Hawley told the Television Critics Association conference. “I didn’t just want the year to be the backdrop against which we told the story. I wanted to try to find a way to take the American experience at that moment and try to turn it into a crime story that really was evocative of that time.

“There’s definitely an element of the death of the family business and the rise of corporate America that plays into the series.”

Dunst said she is familiar with the landscape of Fargo since much of her family is from the Minnesota area.

“We still have one of the oldest farms — it’s not working — but one of the oldest farms in the United States. And so half of my background are those people,” said Dunst. “And my grandma, who is not with us anymore, she lived with us forever. So and she was born and bred in Minnesota. So it’s kind of within my wheelhouse already.”

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